What Māori students are looking for in their teachers

Te Mana Kōrero 1

• What does Russell Bishop note that Māori students seem to be looking for in teachers who they regard as effective? [Teachers who:
  give instructions to students in different ways
• care for students in ways that show they are fair
• acknowledge students’ prior knowledge, especially their cultural knowledge
• give students feedback and feed-forward
• consult and collaborate with students about what’s to be covered (content) and what’s to be achieved.

[Note Bishop’s comment “When the classroom environment changes, students’ engagement goes up, the achievement goes up, their attendance goes up.”]

Russell Bishop and a range of senior students illustrate and clarify these points through video in:

http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/Videos/Changing-Māori-educational-experiences

http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/Videos/Student-voices

The impact of an effective teacher, on Māori student engagement and achievement, is powerfully portrayed in these clips.

Te Mana Kōrero 2

• What examples of culturally responsive and mutually respectful relationships between teachers and students can you identify in the DVD?

[Examples at Rotorua Lakes High School: in maths, science and writing classrooms; Mokoia Intermediate: on the sports field; Pakaraka School: during the reading lesson]

• What do these relationships look like? What is happening in them?

[Rotorua Lakes High School: maths classroom – relaxed, friendly atmosphere, with students fully engaged and on-task as they work collaboratively as guided by the teacher (we can see this teacher at work also in Te Mana Kōrero 1); writing classroom – very warm atmosphere, with students totally engaged in a writing task that relates to their own lives; Pakaraka School: total sharing of assessment information with students, students fully involved in what they need to do in the learning process]

• What do you think teachers have done to develop these relationships?

[Teachers have listened to the messages in their professional development programmes about how Māori students are not engaging in the learning process and about the imbalance of classroom power between Māori students and teachers, and they have made changes to their practice as a result of this, e.g., greeting students personally, pronouncing names correctly, using positive verbal and body language, ensuring that learning approaches enable students and teacher to interact constantly, and showing themselves to be learners from time to time.]

• Why do you think teachers have made the effort to form these relationships?

[To enable students to become more motivated and engaged in the learning process; to address the balance of power between teachers and students; and to create a positive classroom tone with and for students]

• What appear to be the advantages of these relationships for teachers?

[More focused classrooms; more positive classroom tone; greater job satisfaction]

• What appear to be the advantages of these relationships for students?

[More motivated and engaged in the learning process; less imbalance of power between teachers and students; raised achievement levels more likely].

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